Haggen Inc. is closing its TOP Food & Drug store in Federal Way, Wash., in April, the company said earlier this week.
The Puget Sound Business Journal reports that the closure whittles the Bellingham, Wash.-based chain to 27 supermarkets in Washington and Oregon operating under the TOP Food & Drug and Haggen Food & Pharmacy brands.
The store is located at 31515 20th Ave. S. Haggen is working with two unions, UFCW Local 21 and Bakers Local 9, to place the store’s 48 employees with other stores in the chain.
The closure is one of several in recent years.
The company was founded in 1933 in Bellingham by Ben and Dorothy Haggen and Doug Clark. The family sold a majority stake in the company in February 2011 to the Florida investment firm Comvest for an undisclosed sum. At that time, the chain included 30 groceries and employed 3,100 people.
Last October, the family sold five development sites and the property on which 15 Haggen and TOP Food groceries are located to an affiliate of California-based Merlone Geier Properties for $175 million.
The company is smaller, but remains formidable, the Journal says. Haggen Inc. in 2011 was the 11th-largest private company in Washington State, according to Journal research, with revenue of $630 million and 2,800 employees. The grocery chain’s high water mark for revenue was in 2007, when the company had $880 million in revenue and 3,766 employees.
